I wasn't born anti-abortion; I was born curious. When, in the second grade, I encountered a section on human embryology in a library book, I was fascinated. I brought the book to my teacher and asked permission to enlighten my classmates. Soon I was wandering up and down the aisles, showing the other children the pictures and whispering, "See? This is what you looked like before you were born!" Nobody taught me to think of the unborn as a little person. It came natural to me -- this was what we once were, and would one day be as we are. My own family had five living children, and our next door neighbors had ten. New children were simply welcomed in my world. The idea of a child being superfluous never entered my mind.
My first awareness that there was such a thing as abortion was in the early 1970's. One evening after catechism, Dad chatted with the pastor. The pastor caught my attention by suddenly demurring, and asking my father if he shouldn't change the topic in my presence. My father assured the pastor that I was mature enough to handle anything. So I paid close attention to what came next. The pastor explained "candy apple babies" (graphic, from Hayes Publishing). These babies had been scalded with salt in the womb, and when they were born (dead), their skin was raw and bright red. The pastor went on to describe the sad plight of the nurses at Magee Women's Hospital. They had lost their jobs because they no longer could tolerate "hauling baskets of dead babies to the incinerator."
I wasn't sure what he was talking about -- the idea that people deliberately killed unborn babies was one that took a long time to sink in. But I knew nurses-- I associated them with everything that was kind, gentle, and motherly. Anything that could upset those nurses must be terrible indeed, and I felt very sorry for them losing their jobs.
Slowly more awareness seeped into my consciousness. My mother's OB/GYN, I heard, had to stop doing abortions because it was too schizophrenic to be trying to save some babies and deliberately killing others. One classmate was shunned when she was pregnant with an illegitimate child. The early marriage of a slightly older girl was explained a few months later with the appearance of a baby. And rumors circulated that another girl had gone to Pittsburgh for an abortion. I made a point of being friendly to the shunned girl, since her boyfriend had abandoned her but she'd been brave enough to shoulder her burden without a trip to Pittsburgh. By the time I graduated high school, I'd managed to learn that abortion was a terrible thing. But my only responsibility was to show kindness to the brave girls who rejected it. College was going to be an eye opener.
NEXT: Part 2 -- Biology of Sex
The Entire Fence Sitter Series:
Laying the Groundwork
Biology of Sex
Curiouser and Curiouser
Under Pressure
Every Little Bit Helps
The Eye Opener
A Learning Odyssey
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